Posts Tagged ‘Email personalization’
Posted by Nic Winters on January 16th, 2012
If you have taken the step of including personalization in your email campaigns (even if this is limited to including the recipient’s first name, their sales rep, etc.), your goal was likely to make your emails take on a more personal tone. An additional step that may be the right fit for your email marketing strategy is personalizing the landing pages you link to within your emails.
These personalized pages could be limited to a handful of different versions of your landing page that include slightly different offers or a page that utilizes merge tokens to pull the recipient’s email address or other information into form fields.
When you go to incorporate these personalized URLs (PURLs) into your emails, you can achieve this goal using the same approach used to insert recipient first names and/or other data fields into your emails. With the personalization tokens provided within your SubscriberMail account for each data field you can personalize the URL for a hyperlink as well (inserting the token at the point within the URL where differentiation occurs to make the content of a particular data field related to the PURL pull into the link).
Contact the SubscriberMail Client Support team at support@subscribermail.com for more information regarding how you can incorporate PURLs in your email messages.
Posted by Dave McCue on July 14th, 2010
Adding personalization to an email message is a great way to make a connection with the recipient.
Taking the time to create a solid subject line can boost the results of any email campaign.
Do these statements sound familiar? They should, as both are sound bits of email marketing advice. However, the temptation for some marketers is to try and merge the two together, which can produce mixed results.
While personalization is only really limited by the recipient data at your disposal, the bare bones method of personalization used on many emails is to address the recipient by his/her name. This type of dynamic email content can be a nice touch in the body of a message, but it can make for an awkward subject line.
Posted by Dave McCue on August 25th, 2009
In my quest to max out the storage space of my Hotmail account, I have hundreds of targeted email marketing messages saved from a variety of different sources. With so much email coming in all the time, I thought it might make for a fun exercise to look back over the last few days’ worth of email and point out some highs and lows…
Witty vs Effective:
Nike probably doesn’t need my help when it comes to marketing themselves, but a recent email had the following subject line: “Actually, It Is Rocket Science.”
When it comes to writing subject lines, the temptation to be fun or witty can lead to trouble. In this case, Nike was promoting a new running shoe called the LunarGlide+, but I would have never known it based on the subject line. As always, when it comes to subject lines, remember that you are writing for the recipients, not yourself or others within your company. Of course you’d open that email; doesn’t mean your subscribers would.
Timely:
On a Thursday, Sirius | XM emailed me to let me know there would be a special, three-day channel dedicated to Woodstock over that weekend. Why is this timely? Because it was close enough to the weekend that it will still be fresh in recipients’ minds when they hit the road over the weekend. In November, this wouldn’t be nearly as effective, but during summer weekend road trip season, I really like the timing on this one.
You shouldn’t have:
My wife and I bought furniture from The RoomPlace last year, and for some reason they personalize messages by recipients’ last names rather than first names. My friends and my old football coach can call me by my last name, but it seems odd coming from a marketing message. Oh yeah, the last name they use is my wife’s maiden name—just to make it clear that I’m a valued subscriber.
Localized:
Apple sent me an email promoting a Grand Opening of a new Apple Store in my area. Complete with directions and a t-shirt giveaway, this was a great example of targeting subscribers based on geography to ensure relevance as well as sparing non-local subscribers news that wouldn’t hold much value for them.
Questionable relevance:
If Barnes & Noble has a preference center, there is no way to get there from their emails. This would really come in handy, as just this week I was sent a promotion about lower prices on text books and 10% off their selection of children’s books. Considering I’m neither a student nor a father, I wish there was a way I could choose which promotions I would like to receive.
Notice that I didn’t entirely discount the merits of any of these messages? Even those with flaws contained elements that the consumer in me could appreciate (i.e. Nike’s emails just look cool). In fact, it’s not often I come across a message that doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. The challenge email marketers face is typically not a full-scale overhaul of their messages, but the more difficult fine-tuning that will address deficiencies. As they say, the devil is in the details.
Posted by Nic Winters on July 27th, 2009
Welcome again to The First 2 Weeks, where we analyze 3 competitors’ email marketing strategies when it is most crucial… the opt-in process, welcome message, and first few campaigns as these marketers attempt to establish relationships with subscribers.
In our first edition we evaluated the opt-in process and welcome messages for 3 competitors in the sports apparel segment: Nike, Reebok, and adidas. In part 2 we will now investigate campaigns sent beyond the welcome email and preference editing options.
INITIAL CAMPAIGNS
All 3 competitors sent out additional campaigns beyond the opt-in and welcome within the first 2 weeks. However each of the companies waited a considerable amount of time before deploying the first email. adidas communicated closest to the opt-in date (day 5) and the was the most frequent sender (as they sent 5 messages beyond the welcome). Reebok and Nike waited even longer before sending their first (and only) additional emails, with Reebok’s arriving on day 7 and Nike taking the full 2 weeks – arriving on day 14. Nike should take a cue from a retailer I reviewed in a previous post – Gander Mountain, as they could have benefited from a very quick first additional email, since like Gander Mountain they did not send a welcome email.
All 3 competitors had links to view their emails in a browser at the top of each email, while only adidas and Nike featured reminders to add them to your address book to ensure the delivery of future messages. It turned out to very important that all 3 companies include the view in a browser feature, as all of their emails are very image heavy and include a minimal use of alt tags to provide key information with images off.
Posted by Dave McCue on July 24th, 2009
My approach to saving money has changed drastically as the economy has entered into its current recession, and my recent birthday provided further evidence that I’m becoming a Grade-A tightwad. As the big day approached, rather than plan a party, I consulted my email inbox in an effort to unearth the best birthday deals I could find.
Of course, no one emailed me a coupon for a shiny new bike, but I did get a few offers that got me interested. Here are a few of the brands who reached out to remind me that not only is it okay to get older, it’s okay to be a cheapskate:
